Apple Gets Millions in ‘Marketing Fees’ from Banks in Singapore for Apple Pay

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Apple Gets Millions in ‘Marketing Fees’ from Banks in Singapore for Apple Pay

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It looks like Apple isn’t satisfied with the transaction fees it gets from Singapore banks offering Apple Pay. The iPhone maker is charging banks and financial institutions using Apple Pay a “marketing fee” which ranges between $2 million and $5 million, sources speaking with the Singapore newspaper the Business Times said.

Since four banks — DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and UOB—and (of course) American Express offer Apple Pay in Singapore, and each financial institution will pay that “marketing fee”, the most conservative estimate puts that total amount to $10 million. The sources say this is a one-time fee banks have to pay in order to join the “club”.

Many used unprintable words to describe Apple’s heavy-handed ways; some words were in Hokkien.

“The joke is Apple was known as the one who must not be named,” said one source. “This is basically its exclusive membership fee. It’s a sunk cost.”

And in the clearest sign and standard of ire, another source called Apple “worse than MAS”.

Besides the millions of dollars of “exclusive membership fee”, Apple takes a cut from transactions as well. Financial institutions in Singapore are said to pay a transaction fee that is between 0.1% and 0.2% per transaction or between 10 and 20 cents per $100.

In the US Apple charges 0.15% per transaction, or 15 cents per $100, while in China, sources says banks pay 7 cents per 100 yuan, and in the UK a few pence per £100.

The Apple Pay launch in the city-state was successful: about 100,000 bank-issued cards were enabled in Singapore only in the first two weeks of the launch. Since then, however, Apple has taken over control of the numbers so we aren’t likely to see similar updates-